Her aunt had hung one of Hannah’s old dresses in the bedroom closet, and she’d put it on. She looked down at the plain blue dress. “You’re right. I think I’ll change. The bishop might think I intend to confess at the next meeting.” Besides, it seemed she was a girl again, and the clothing brought back the horror of the night she’d found the bodies of her family.
She stepped past two twin beds with no headboards. They were neatly made up with white sheets and blankets. She opened the closet, her hand hovering over a plain black dress with three-quarter-length sleeves. So severe and unflattering. Was it a sin to want to look nice? She’d tried to cover up after the way Reece made her dress, but maybe she’d gone too far.
After changing her shoes to low pumps, she defiantly added a simple locket to the outfit. Her family and friends would think she was a heathen for wearing the jewelry, but she needed some space from them, and this would create it.
Angie shook her head. “It’s better, but sheesh, Hannah. I wish you’d let me take you shopping sometime. You’ve got a terrific figure, great hair and skin, and you do nothing to enhance your assets. I know you think you need to look the part of a matronly quilt expert, but you’re only thirty-two. Live a little!”
“Reece used to make me wear slinky dresses that plunged to my navel, and high heels,” she said. Her skin still burned at the memory of the way men looked at her.
“You’re kidding! You?”
“I hated them.” Hannah smoothed her skirt with her hand. “Has Aunt Nora come out yet?”
“Nope. Not a peep from her room.”
“I’ll check on her.” Hannah went to her aunt’s closed doorway down the hall off the living room. There was no sound from the other side. She tiptoed to the door and listened. Nothing. Rapping her knuckles softly against the wood, she called to her aunt. At first she thought the older woman would ignore the summons, but the door finally opened.
Her aunt was fully dressed in her usual dark blue dress and sensible shoes. The prayer bonnet looked a bit askew, but her features were composed as she tucked a hanky up her sleeve. “We should probably go down. Everyone will be arriving.”
Hannah nodded and followed her aunt downstairs. Buggies were beginning to pull into the drive, dozens of them. Men hauled in backless benches and lined them up around the living and dining rooms and the kitchen. Women carried covered dishes for after the burial.
Her back erect, Aunt Nora accepted their handshakes and thoughtful words.
An hour later, they were all assembled. Hannah followed her aunt to the dining room and sat on the bench beside her. Moe’s coffin was a plain pine box. The split top was hinged, and the upper portion of it had been folded back to reveal Moe’s face. Hannah clasped her hands together as the usher seated people on the benches. She barely noticed Sarah and the girls come in. Luca would grieve that he’d missed the funeral. He likely didn’t even know yet. He had no phone with him.
Angie sat on the bench behind Hannah and her aunt. Hannah turned around and whispered to Angie that they would sit through a regular church service, not a real funeral as the Englisch knew it. The bishop removed his hat, and in unison, the other men in the line of ministers removed theirs, as did all the men in the house. The bishop began to speak, an exhortation from the Old Testament. Preparation for death was the main theme of the sermon, and that theme was continued thirty minutes later by the second minister. When he was done, the minister read Moe’s obituary in German, then dismissed the men to prepare for the viewing.
In spite of the number of people attending, the rearrangement went forward in near silence. The house emptied of mourners, and the men carried the coffin to the entry. Friends and neighbors filed past Moe to say their good-byes. Several people nodded to Nora and murmured condolences as they left to get in their buggies and go to the graveyard.
Hannah whispered to Angie that she wanted to go to the grave site in a buggy. Slipping away from the crowd, she hurried to the barn and hitched up a spry black horse to Moe’s single-seater. She waited until the last of the buggies pulled out, then fell into the line behind them.
She needed to be alone to think. Life had come at her too fast in the past week, and with it, memories of her earlier life in this place. Was it as idyllic as she remembered? She believed it was, and she mourned the loss of her innocence.
With her thoughts swirling, she fell behind the rest of the buggies. The sky darkened, and rain began to patter onto her head. It grew nearly as dark as dusk. The air took on a greenish cast, and she feared a tornado might be in the swirling clouds.
She slapped the reins on the horse’s rump, and he picked up the pace. As the rain fell harder, she wished her people believed in buggy coverings. She could barely see the road with the water dripping in her eyes. A dark shape loomed ahead in the downpour, and she realized a car without lights was bearing down on her. Did the driver see her? She directed the horse to the side of the road and kept going forward, but the car swerved toward her side of the road. She couldn’t see the make or model, just the shape coming closer.
It was going to hit her, and her gut told her it was a deliberate move. She didn’t want the horse to be harmed but didn’t know what to do. Then she saw a path cut into the newly planted field of corn. Just as she turned the horse into the path, the car brushed by so closely that it rocked her buggy. Perspiration popped out on her forehead, and her hands began to shake. All she could see were the taillights flashing as the car slowed at the next intersection and went on.
Someone had tried to hit her.
She gulped back her fear and backed the buggy out of the lane to continue on to the grave site. The sun began to peek through the clouds as she finished the trip. She’d be late and a bedraggled rat, but she was alive. Still shaking, she stopped the buggy behind the long line and stepped down into the mud. She realized she was right in front of the graves of her parents.
Plain wooden stakes marked their sites. There were no flowers on any of the graves, and she longed to put just a single carnation on her mother’s. She’d loved beautiful flowers so much. Keeping them from her didn’t seem right.
Did Mamm ever regret her decision to join the Amish church? It wasn’t done very often. It helped that her parents were German and she was already bilingual, but she gave up so much for Datt. Hannah wished she could talk to her mother’s family, but the brief glimpse of her aunt and cousin at the funeral had been her only contact with them. Maybe she could find them again. Aunt Nora might know how to contact Aunt Cathy and Mary.
Had Reece really converted to the Amish faith? And if he had, where did that leave her? She couldn’t go back to him. What if Reece was indeed behind everything—her parents’ deaths, the fire at Aunt Nora’s, the attempt on her life? Or was it her bitterness blinding her? Could she be wrong about Reece? But no, she’d felt his hand shoving her down the steps. A man who would do that was capable of anything. Her hatred swelled.
Hannah saw Angie’s car parked along the road and waved to her. Angie jogged over to join her. “What happened to you?” she asked. “You look like a drowned kitten.”
“Someone tried to run me off the road.” Hannah told Angie what had happened, and immediately her publicist wanted to call Matt. “I don’t want to spoil the funeral. We’ll go see him later.”
They stood on the edge of the crowd. Hannah tried to be as inconspicuous as possible. A blue Saturn rolled to a stop in the line of vehicles, and a woman got out. A sense of déjà vu rolled over her when she recognized her cousin Mary.
Ten years older now, Mary had lost the fresh bloom of her early twenties. Her auburn hair was cut short, and the style did nothing to flatter her face. She’d gained a few pounds as well, and the blouse she wore strained across her stomach. Hannah stepped out to meet her.
“Mary, I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Hannah.”
The other woman smiled. “It would be hard to mistake you since we look so much alike.”